


This Kind of Loneliness

by betweenthebliss



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 1000-5000 Words, Angst, F/M, Fall Fandom Free For All
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-25
Updated: 2009-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 18:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betweenthebliss/pseuds/betweenthebliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had been twelve years since his shape had darkened her door and still she knew him. How could she not?</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Kind of Loneliness

**Author's Note:**

> forgive any errors in continuity because my memory of john's storyline in s1 is a little hazy. for morlockiness's prompt at the fall fandom free-for-all. title and cut text from the rolling stones.

It had been twelve years since his shape had darkened her door and still she knew him. How could she not? He had scarcely changed. Same dark hair, three days' worth of beard stubbling his cheeks, same gunmetal voice shadowed by two decades of buried pain.

Ellen knew about pain, about burying. Thanks to John Winchester, she knew far too much.

She didn't know what to do with him-- she didn't want him in her bar, but she couldn't throw him out-- she didn't want to serve him herself, but sure as hell wasn't about to send Jo over. She sent Ash over instead, tried not to watch John charm him easy as he did everyone else, tried not to hate Ash for laughing at whatever John said that was funny. It wasn't his fault-- that's just how John Winchester was. You couldn't help loving him, right up until he gutted your heart like a fish.

He sat in the corner all night, just drinking beer, minding his own business, writing in a weatherworn journal sometimes, watching the boys play pool other times. Waiting for her, she realized, after hours of stealing glances at his reflection in the window. Waiting for her to walk over and talk. Because that was the other thing about John Winchester that never changed-- he wasn't so much patient as stubborn, and if he wanted something, he could sit still and wait until his teeth fell out for it to happen.

Ellen didn't want to get taken in again; she wanted to grab the bottle out of his hand and crack him upside the head with it, then drag him outside and leave him to wake up in the morning tasting the same dirt she'd been choking on since the day her husband died.

She wouldn't let herself be drawn out by him. She stayed behind the bar all night, and come 11:30 she was starting to clean up, when finally she heard his heavy tread behind her. She didn't look back to see him standing at the bar, elbows leaning hard on the polished wood.

"I'm hunting it, Ellen," he said without any kind of introduction or preamble. She didn't answer and he went on. "The thing that killed Mary. The yellow eyed demon. Last month it-- it killed Sam's girlfriend." She went still, hearing the barely contained break in his voice, the tight-leashed fury.

She wanted to say she was sorry, wished she could've meant it. But really she wanted to apologize to the poor dead girl and her parents, those sorry saps; they'd had no idea. You get involved with a Winchester, it's all you were gonna get-- blood, fire and death.

Ellen's eyes closed and she heaved a breath before turning around. "Why would you imagine I'd care about any of that?" she asked, and was proud of her voice for not trembling. Her hands were another story, and she shoved them into her pockets.

"I found out a little more about it-- looks like it summoned the demon that killed Bill in order to keep me off its trail. Thought you might want a crack at the thing that killed your husband," he said, not a drop of remorse in his eyes or his face, and she felt her eyes narrow to slits.

"You had about as much to do with that as any demon," she murmured, "and I've been content to forget you existed these past twelve years."

He had the good sense to drop his gaze at least, and his thumb traced a sigil in the damp left from his beer bottle. She moved in quick with a towel to wipe it away.

"Why'd you come here?" she asked, sharp as steel. She wouldn't say his name.

He was silent a moment; when he spoke it was low, more honest than she was ever expecting from him. "Can't do this alone. Not askin' you to do it, but this is one of the only places I know I can find a concentration of hunters in one place."

She felt her lip curl. He wasn't wrong, and one of the reason she kept the roadhouse going was just for this. Didn't mean she had to like everyone who came through the door-- didn't mean she had to have a goddamn conversation. "Do your business and get gone, then," she said, turning away.

The bar was between them but it felt like he was right behind her when he said her name soft as a caress. She froze again and he said, "I was hoping--"

"What?" she rounded on him, crackling with electric fury. "That I'd forgotten? _Forgiven?_ That it would just have vanished-- what, with _time_, John?" He stirred and she pressed closer. "You may've eased your conscience, but nothing's going to--" She stopped, her mouth snapping shut, fingernails scraping the wood of the bar, and took a breath. That was her wound, her private hurt, not something to show John Winchester like he had a right to share it.

"Not that you had, but that you might. Forgive me." His eyes were on the bar, and before she could pull away he laid one of his big hands over her smaller one, fingers circling her wrist easy and familiar as ever. "You meant a lot to me once, Ellen."

Her eyes fell shut against the onslaught of memory crowding to the forefront of her mind, and she gritted her teeth. The dry heat of his hand on hers burned like a brand, and she remembered what it was like to feel that touch sear her skin, that hand in her hair. They'd been drunk and stupid but not too careless to make it worthwhile, and she'd come apart underneath him, watching his eyes unfocus, wanting to see the shadow of grief fade from his face and pretending it was the same thing when he pressed his lips to her shoulder as he came.

It had only been the once, and she'd regretted it every day since. She didn't know what she'd been thinking-- now she knew better than to think losing the love of your life is a hurt that could be healed. She'd wanted to, God, she'd wanted nothing more than to have the old John back, and she'd done the only thing she could think of. A fool's gambit that had won her nothing but him thinking he had a right to some part of her she didn't want him to have.

He was right; he had meant a lot to her, and to Bill. It didn't change the fact that he'd let them both down.

"Times change, John," she said curtly, pulling her hand free and stepping back. "Now shake a leg, I gotta close up."

She stepped outside an hour later, bending her head to light a cigarette. She didn't smoke much anymore, but sometimes she missed the bite of nicotine, the easy ritual. Sometimes it was the only thing reminding her to keep breathing.

She wasn't surprised to glance right and see the Impala, or the figure on the hood, profile illuminated by the flare of a lighter as he lit his own cigarette.

"Should've figured you wouldn't go when I told you to," she said, admitting defeat.

"Should've, yeah." He levered himself off the car and came toward her, and she was grateful for the darkness. If they were going to talk, she didn't want to see his face.

But he didn't say anything, just smoked in silence until she was done, and didn't bother offering her a light when she pulled another smoke from the pack.


End file.
